MARCH 19TH

POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK

All things are cheap to the saving, dear to the wasteful.

— Benjamin Franklin,1734

AMERICANREVOLUTION.ORG

APPENDIX B

SUBSEQUENT CAREERS OF MEMBERS OF
THE
EXPEDITION

Perhaps the reader would be interested to
hear what fate befell those heroes who thus passed alive through
famine, pestilence and battle to secure to their posterity our
American institutions and the countless blessings which have
fallen to our country since the war of the Revolution. The good
steel of which they were made had been well tempered by their
sufferings, and a remarkable number became very prominent in
the history of the Republic. Almost all the officers, as soon
as exchanged, reenlisted.

Morgan fought in almost every battle of the
war, was the hero of Cowpens, and turned the tide for the Americans
with his celebrated rifle corps on many a hard-fought fleld.
He rose to be a major-general, and was elected a member of Congress.
He died at Winchester, Virginia, after a long and painful illness,
in 1799.

Captain Matthew Smith was promoted to a majority.
In 1778-9 he served as a member of the Supreme Executive Council
of Pennsylvania, and was at one time acting vice-president of
that state. He died at Milton, Pennsylvania, July 21, 1794.

Lieutenant-Colonel Greene distinguished himself
by his heroic defense of Red Bank in 1777, and continued in the
service till 1781, when he was attacked in his quarters, near
Croton River, N. Y., by a party of refugees, overpowered and
barbarously murdered, his corpse mutilated and flung into the
woods.

Of the captains of Greene's division, Thayer
distinguished himself as a commander of the gallant little garrison
of Fort Mifflin, lost an eye at Monmouth and retired in 1781
with the rank of major. He was for several years brigadier-general
of the militia of Providence county, Rhode Island. He was killed
by a fall from his horse in 1800, in the sixty-third year of
his age.

Topham left the army a colonel. He was for
many years a deputy to the General Assembly from Newport. He
died a natural death in 1793, aged fifty-five years. He had eleven
sons and twin daughters. Ten of the sons went to sea; none of
these ever returned or were heard of afterwards.

Major Bigelow, at the head of the 15th Massachusetts,
was at Saratoga, Valley Forge and West Point. He died in 1790,
aged fifty years.

Major Meigs was in 1777 made a colonel, and
for a brilliant expedition to Long Island that year received
the thanks of Congress and a sword. He commanded a regiment under
Wayne at the capture of Stony Point. In 1816 he was agent for
Indian affairs, and later was the first provisional governor
of Ohio. He died January 28, 1823, at the Cherokee Agency, aged
eighty-three years.

Lieutenant Christian Febiger, afterwards
colonel of the 2d Virginia, with the 11th Virginia, led one of
the assaulting columns at Stony Point. He came to be well known
in the army as "Old Denmark" and left the service a
brigadier-general by brevet. He served with distinction from
Bunker Hill to Yorktown. In 1791 he held the office of treasurer
of the state of Pennsylvania. He died in that office in 1796,
at fifty. He was captain of the First City Troop of Philadelphia.

Captain Dearborn, afterwards of Major Scammel's regiment, fought
at Ticonderoga, Monmouth and Saratoga. On Scammel's death he
commanded the regiment. The war over, he settled in Gardiner,
Maine, and under President Washington was United States marshal
for the district of Maine. He was twice elected to Congress,
and was for eight years secretary of war under Jefferson. During
Madison's administration he was collector of the port of Boston.
In 1812 he was commissioned major-general in the United States
Army, and under President Monroe was its commander-in-chief.
In 1822 he was appointed minister to Portugal. He died in Roxbury
in 1829, aged seventy-eight yeaxs.

Ward was commissioned a major in Colonel
Christopher Greene's regiment, fought at Red Bank, participated
in the retreat from Long Island, and shared the privations of
Valley Forge. Later he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel, and
later still was given a regiment. After the war he became a merchant
at Warwick, Rhode Island, subsequently at New York, under the
firm name of Samuel Ward and Brother. He died in New York in
1832, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, surviving, I think,
all his fellow officers. He had been a member of the Annapolis
convention, and of the Hartford convention, where he exerted
his influence in behalf of the government. He was also president
of the New York Marine Insurance Company.

Lieutenant-Colonel Enos, after his court
martial, withdrew from the army, but afterward accepted a commission,
and was at one time, with the rank of brigadier-general, commander
of all the troops of his native state, Vermont. But I have not
been able to discover that he ever again saw service in the field.
He served nearly ten years in the State Legislature, was a commissioner
to New Hampshire during the Vermont controversy, and was prominent
in the annals of the state after the war. He died in Colchester,
Vermont, in 1808, at the ripe age of seventy-two years.

Captain McCobb, on his return from the expedition,
raised a regiment in Lincoln county, was commissioned its colonel,
joined Washington's army at Cambridge, and took part in the Rhode
Island campaign. In command of another regiment he took part
in the unfortunate expedition against Castine. In the subsequent
official investigation into the causes of this failure, it is
recorded that McCobb's command acquitted itself with honor, and
after losing some men and officers, he brought away the remainder
of his command intact, assisting others of the forces also in
retreat. After the war he represented his townsmen as a representative
to the general court; and at his death in 1791, at forty-seven
years of age, was commander of the military division of Maine,
with rank of brigadier-general.

Dr. Senter built up an extensive practice,
but died at forty-six years of age, in 1799, at the height of
his reputation and usefulness.

The Rev. Dr. Spring died in 1819, at seventy-three
years of age. On his return from Quebec he left the army, and
was a minister of Newburyport for many years. He was one of the
founders of the Massachusetts Missionary Society, of the Andover
Theological Seminary and the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions.

Ensign Charles Porterfield rose to be lieutenant-colonel,
and died soon after the battle of Camden from wounds received
in the early part of that action.

Dr. Thomas Gibson died at Valley Forge.

Captain Eleazar Oswald retired from the army
in 1778 a lieutenant-colonel. He participated in the affair at
Compo, and did gallant service at Monmouth. Soon after leaving
the army he was appointed public printer at Philadelphia. In
command of a regiment of artillery in the French Army of Liberty,
he served with credit under Dumourier in the battle of Jemappe.
He died in the United States of smallpox in 1795.

Lieutenant Shaw, promoted to a captaincy,
was killed at Red Bank. Lieutenant Stevens and William Humphrey
became captains in line regiments.

Boyd was captured, and hideously tortured
to death by the Indians in 1779.

John Joseph Henry became a judge and president
of the Second Judicial District of Pennsylvania, but a broken
constitution carried him to an early grave. On account of injuries
received and disease contracted during the campaign, he was unable
to accept promotion tendered him when exchanged, and never took
the field again.

Lieutenant Michael Simpson fought at Trenton,
Princeton, Brandywine and White Plains, and after the war was
commissioned a brigadier-general in the Pennsylvania Militia.

Lieutenant Archibald Steele lived to be ninety-one
years of age, and died in Philadelphia October 19, 1832. He was
at one time appointed deputy quartermaster-general with rank
of colonel in the Continental line, and held for some time the
position of military store-keeper in Philadelphia.

James Crouch of Smith's company rose from
the ranks to a colonelcy. Private David Harris, also of Smith's,
became a captain in the Pennsylvania line.

Sabattis was killed in a fight on the Kennebec
with a settler named Ephraim Brown. Natanis fought again on the
side of the Americans at Saratoga; what end he met history has
not yet revealed.

Of Captain Handchett's life, after being
exchanged, we have no particulars. He died in 1816, aged seventy-five,
at the West Parish in Suffield.

Of Captain Goodrich I have no account.

Of the subsequent career of Captains Scott
and Williams of Enos's division I have, as yet found no trace.
It would be interesting to learn whether they removed by later
acts the impression which their defection created.

Of Mrs. Jemima Warner or Mrs. Grier I can
only find this clue - an entry in Haskell's Journal, under date
of April 18, 1776: "A woman of the Pennsylvania troops was
killed to-day by accident - a soldier carelessly snapping his
musket, which proved to be loaded."

Colonel James Livingston was at the battle
of Stillwater, and in command of Verplanck's Point at the time
of Arnold's treason.

Major John Brown was killed in 1780, in an
ambuscade on the Mohawk.

Captain John Lamb lived to be severely wounded
by another grapeshot at Compo Hill, Conn., in 1777. He fought
at Yorktown. After the war he was a member of the New York General
Assembly, and was raised to the rank of brigadier-general. He
was also collector of the customs at the port of New York. He
died in 1800, aged sixty-five years.

Edward Antill became a lieutenant-colonel
in the Continental army.

Of Colonel Donald Campbell I have no account.
Henry states that he was court-martialed for his conduct at Prés
de Ville and acquitted.

As for the King's officers who so gallantly
and steadfastly defended the fortress, Governor Guy Carleton
succeeded Sir Henry Clinton in 1781 as commander-in-chief of
the British forces in America, and so continued until after the
treaty of peace. In 1786 he was again appointed governor of Quebec,
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and was raised to the peerage
as a reward for his distinguished services, under the title of
Lord Dorchester. He died in 1808, at the age of eighty-five.

MacLean in 1779 defended successfully the
fort in Penobscot, Maine, against Lovell and Saltonstall. He
was promoted to be a colonel in 1780.